


Homecoming

by DiurnalDays



Series: Toshillion [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Flashbacks, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Military Backstory, Mythology References, Non-Chronological, Religion, Science Fiction, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiurnalDays/pseuds/DiurnalDays
Summary: Toshiaki returns home.
Relationships: Toshiaki Mizushima/Axellion Aihara
Series: Toshillion [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095440





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT: This was written as a potential ending to this storyline that would resolve a bunch of plot threads and character arcs. In future short stories, I intend on exploring the actual beginning of this story as well as all the in-betweens that lead up to this conclusion. Reading this right after the other three works in this collection (as of 1/6/2021) means that you should have lots of unanswered questions by the end. I hope you'll continue to follow Toshiaki, Axellion, Jiaoyue, and the other characters of this world as I flesh out their backstories, developments, relationships, et cetera.

Upon reaching the shore, Toshiaki leapt from the prow and onto the sandy beach below. He let the sights wash over him for a moment. Ahead of him laid the gentle green slopes of Aeolus interspersed with sedimentary stones and humped sand dunes. Down the shore, a colony of seabirds warily eyed the vessel beached on the sand. 

With each step forward, his metal feet sank into plush, warm sand. He closed his eyes and let the clean, crisp sea breeze fill his nostrils. Warm sunlight bathed his entire body, tugging long-faded memories to his mind’s surface.

The first and last time he’d returned here, he’d burned his devotional robes on the beach. He had been ordered to sever his last ties with the Maidens of Aeolus as his induction into the Kainys Project. Toshiaki had obliged wordlessly, pressing the nozzle of the torch canister to the pale fabric and then stepping back. 

Orange and red twilight had bled into cool purple night. His robes turned dark and brittle before gradually crumbling apart. He should’ve felt liberated by finally leaving behind the sisterhood that had smothered him from infancy into adolescence, but his body only grew colder from the evening breeze. By the end, he had felt no warmth from the flames. 

When he had turned around and walked stiff-shouldered back to the Federation envoy, Jiaoyue and the Admiral awaited him with nothing but cold steel in their eyes. That was the moment where Yamato Mizushima was reborn as Toshiaki Mizushima, elite soldier of the Federation. 

Toshiaki opened his eyes. The ashes of his devotional robes were now long gone, washed away by the ocean’s waves. Both the temple maiden and the loyal soldier were long gone as well. There was now only himself and a serene shoreline.

Before he knew where he was heading, his feet traced the overgrown footpath leading up the slope towards the old shrine. Statues that once held mystique in their jeweled eyes now lay strewn about in the sands of the slope. After a few minutes of silently following the pull in his gut, he arrived at the main shrine within Aeolus Temple.

For years, Aeolus Temple laid untouched by humans after the pestilence that had taken the lives of all but a single temple maiden. While most of the temple’s buildings were destroyed by the Mortem invasion, parts of the shrine still remained. Wild shrubbery grew in clusters in the sandy pits that once contained sacred objects. Vines and tall grasses swathed the crumbling stone walls around the stone altar in the center of the shrine. 

Toshiaki paused at the dais encircling the altar, reaching his hand out to touch the sapling now entwined with the eroded stone inscriptions. The altar was his last remaining bridge to his past life now that everything else had been swept away by the ocean’s waves or burned by flames. Before he left this island behind for good, he still had one final duty to complete.

The unmarked graves of his fallen sisters lay somewhere deep beneath Temple Aeolus’s dunes with nobody left to remember them and no last rites allowing them to pass into the next life. Sooner or later, the isle of Temple Aeolus would swallow their bodies along with the stone temple itself, leaving behind no trace that a sisterhood had ever existed at all. Toshiaki was their last chance at salvation from forever wandering the mortal world as wayward spirits. 

Even in his new body, the motions were still rote and familiar to him. He carefully knelt before the stone altar, his metal legs clicking against the prayer plate embedded in the dais. With a deep breath, he clasped his hands together and began reciting the last rites. 

Unlike the legends, no guardian souls of virtuous priestesses appeared before him once the last prayers left his tongue. The stone shrine remained in ruins, and the only sounds filling his ears were the faint cries of birds and the rustling of leaves. Perhaps the spirits sensed that he was no longer their sister after years of living as a man. There would be no last tearful goodbye from the sisters he had forsaken.

Even then, he hoped that the women who were once his sisters would move on to a better place just like he had. All he could do to honor their memories was moving forward towards a better future. 

He rose to his feet and left without another word. 

Down by the shore, a maiden in loose devotionary robes stood side by side with a soldier trapped within his own armor. They met Toshiaki’s gaze and smiled with visible relief. 

Toshiaki blinked. The maiden and the soldier had disappeared into the sun’s gentle rays. 

With a slight smile on his face, he walked towards the VMS Ark where it was beached on the shore. Axellion waved at him from the ship’s prow, hair billowing in the breeze. Jiaoyue stood several paces behind him with crossed arms and a welcoming smile. 

The future awaited over the ocean’s horizon. 


End file.
